-
So Inspirational & so lacking
-
The fundamentals of the magnetic timeline seem pretty simple. Connection based clip arrangement. This could feasibly be a circle with a spiraling playhead and connections stemming out. It’s just not because the horizontal timeline makes sense. That’s the problem. The timeline in FCPX “looks” the same it just doesn’t function the same. Could this same connection feature could be achieved with track based editing, with independent video/audio parameters?
What is the benefit of being able to arrange video clips beneath the primary Storyline? The playhead still feeds from the Storyline above. How does one benefit from being able to place audio inside or above the primary storyline? Why do secondary Storylines lose all ability to composite, but secondary Storylines are required for transitions? To me this just comes across as confusing and sloppy. It feels like an incomplete thought, different for the sake of being different, not a superior function.
A track based system allows broad locking, classification, and on/off ability of elements. I can lock a music track for music video editing. I can easily and universally turn on/off bugs or graphic elements. I can easily and universally classify audio elements in an edit. If the audio solution in a trackless system is tagging each individual audio effect — talk about a time waster.
I’m curious to what a feature or documentary film “Magnetic Timeline” would look like. Would it be thousands of elements slopped around with no care or consideration for visual representation or placement?
What exactly is the drawback to a track system? It’s worked pretty damn well for the last 20 years. Why not keep the track convention AND add the keyword metadata in lieu of labels? Everything I love about FCPX can be adapted into the conventional, proven NLE track system.
I’m all for any system that speeds up my daily workflow, but this whole timeline in FCPX comes across as a gimmick, breaking the very functional, simple concept of track based editing.
JONATHAN DORTCH
BLACK WOLF CREATIVE -
[Jonathan Dortch] “What is the benefit of being able to arrange video clips beneath the primary Storyline?”
This lets you leave clips that are conceptually part of the primary storyline in the primary storyline, but still composite them over other clips, if necessary.
[Jonathan Dortch] “How does one benefit from being able to place audio inside or above the primary storyline?”
Sometimes there’s sound but no picture. With the relational clip model, you’d have to attach audio to a gap slug in these cases. Just being able to place it directly in the primary storyline is more natural, I think.
[Jonathan Dortch] “Why do secondary Storylines lose all ability to composite, but secondary Storylines are required for transitions?”
My guess is that this is just a bug, based on the fact that opacity still works for clips in secondary storylines.
[Jonathan Dortch] “If the audio solution in a trackless system is tagging each individual audio effect — talk about a time waster.”
Not at all, because you can tag them in batches before they’re edited in. If you have an SFX library imported as an event, for instance, you just tag everything in it SFX to begin with. Now drop clips in anywhere, and they’ve still got that tag.
[Jonathan Dortch] “I’m curious to what a feature or documentary film “Magnetic Timeline” would look like. Would it be thousands of elements slopped around with no care or consideration for visual representation or placement? “
We keep hearing these theories about how the magnetic timeline will supposedly ruin everything for long, complex edits, but it actually provides far more organizational support. On a feature project, for instance, you can easily turn scenes into compound clips, at which point your main sequence is nothing but a series of clips with names like “Scene 1”, etc. I have literally no idea where people are getting this idea that the magnetic timeline is messy. It seems to me it actually discourages some of the sillier things I’ve seen editors do with tracks over the years.
—
Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
-
“…. in a World…”
I’m misty-eyed already… 😉
-
[Jonathan Dortch] “What exactly is the drawback to a track system? It’s worked pretty damn well for the last 20 years. Why not keep the track convention AND add the keyword metadata in lieu of labels? Everything I love about FCPX can be adapted into the conventional, proven NLE track system. “
The drawback is in how it has evolved to be used. The tracked timeline was conceived as a visual metaphor for compositing. That’s it. It had no other design intent. Video over other video was “on top” and if made translucent or cropped or whatever it revealed what was underneath. Audio tracks are analogous to tracks on a mixer and there is not a top-down hierarchy to them. Overlapping clips mix together on output or they can be “patched” to outputs.
Over the years this ubiquitous track-metaphor convention gave editors a structure with which they could create a de facto set of organizational rules; lower thirds on V3, B-roll on V2, SFX on A3&4, NAT on A5&6, etc. But what if you needed to composite between to lower thirds? Or what if you wanted to use the tracks to mix audio in the timeline? The informal structure breaks down and all the “control” everyone keeps harping about becomes a series of workarounds to jam the work into the arbitrary track rules.
Yes, tracks are a convention, and the magnetic timeline throws them out. The end output is still one video track and a fixed set of mixed down or split audio tracks. The traditional timeline is just a metaphor, nothing more. The magnetic timeline is just a new metaphor.
There is no technical reason I can imagine why the magnetic timeline couldn’t support “views” that visually remix the metaphor on the fly and present a more traditional track layout, and this would be very useful. Imagine the audio connected to the main storyline with the click of a button rearranging and collapsing itself into virtual tracks based on the timeline’s particular outputs that will have different metadata tags assigned to them. Dialogue on A1&2, SFX on A3&4, NAT on A5&6, Music on A7&8, etc. You could use that view for master mixing, soloing output busses, and generally visualizing your outputs. Apple should do this, and I’m going to suggest it to them in a Feedback.
Best,
Andy RichardsVP of Product Development
Keeper Technology -
[Chris Kenny] “On a feature project, for instance, you can easily turn scenes into compound clips, at which point your main sequence is nothing but a series of clips with names like “Scene 1″, etc.”
And what that would accomplish exactly?
[Chris Kenny] “Not at all, because you can tag them in batches before they’re edited in. If you have an SFX library imported as an event, for instance, you just tag everything in it SFX to begin with. Now drop clips in anywhere, and they’ve still got that tag.”
This is very simplistic and remote from practical. Try instead this:
Production sound comes to me in BWF-poly files with a track for each character, a boom, an M+S pair and a production mix. I sync them to the picture takes and go on cutting the scenes. The production mix track is usually good enough so I just mute all other tracks. But I don’t delete them becuse when picture is locked I have to export each 2000 ft reel with all the sound. Almost every cut in there is either J- or L-cut so it is all arranged in the checkerboard fashion. There is also some M&E but this doesn’t complicate matters. So how exactly do I tag my production sound and how long would it take me? What if the budget is shifted from sound editorial to picture editorial and I need to give the sound editor more sophisticated stems?By the way you participated in both threads I posted this question.
-
[Andrew Richards] “The drawback is in how it has evolved to be used. The tracked timeline was conceived as a visual metaphor for compositing. That’s it. It had no other design intent. Video over other video was “on top” and if made translucent or cropped or whatever it revealed what was underneath. Audio tracks are analogous to tracks on a mixer and there is not a top-down hierarchy to them. Overlapping clips mix together on output or they can be “patched” to outputs.”
I’m totally clear on all of that 🙂 But how does the “Magnetic Timeline” convention change this? The visual mechanisms remain unchanged. There is still a top down hierarchy, only without track representation to provide a further order of organization/classification. Maybe I’m just missing something on this, but how does the Magnetic Timeline change anything about the visual representation of the edit besides adding “connections” with a more robust nesting capability, while removing tracks that we all used to help classify elements and easily manipulate them on a broad scale.
Without a “track,” what is the process for reliably locking or preserving elements into their vertical hierarchy? I mean, as an simple example, how would one take a 4 sec bug graphic and reliably extend across the entire edit in X? Extend it in a compound clip and place as high as possible in the Magnetic Timeline connected to the first clip? Aren’t height properties loose and have the potential fluctuate depending on how broadly you’re manipulating vertical elements further down the edit?
In classic FCP I can throw that bug on top, duplicate to end of edit, lock it, and be on my merry way in about 5 seconds.
In that same vein, is there ANY mechanism for “locking” visual elements in FCPX?
[Andrew Richards] ” But what if you needed to composite between to lower thirds?”
I’m not sure what you mean, but I think if I needed to composite between a shot and a lower third I would just raise the lower third to a higher track I usually put them pretty high up for this reason, and compress unused tracks if necessary. Same thing would happen here if you put a text layer above your storyline, correct? Would need to raise the text connection above the video?
JONATHAN DORTCH
BLACK WOLF CREATIVE -
@ J Hussar;
great 🙂 nice it inspired you; you inspired me with your perspective;
these are exciting times as the “good” features of FCPX will in return push Avid & Adobe to integrate similar features & interactivity;
Over time it will be a win-win situation for all of us….
In the meantime I will have to use both FCP 7 & X 🙂
all is good
frank, sonicVision.de
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up